Deadly Attack at Manchester Synagogue, 2 Killed

Early Wednesday evening on The Lead, CNN fact-checker and Canadian Daniel Dale teamed up with host Jake Tapper to engage in a sleight of hand to paint Republicans as liars in the government shutdown battle for arguing Democrats want to provide health care for illegal immigrants (which they do). In essence, Dale told viewers both here and later on AC360 that those receiving free care are aren’t “illegal” because they had been processed and released into the country with a court date or outstanding asylum claim. “So, is there any truth at all to what they’re saying? Well, CNN’s Daniel Dale is our resident fact checker. Daniel, tell us more about this claim that Republicans are making about what Democrats are fighting for here,” Tapper began. Dale unsurprisingly declared this claim anywhere “from misleading to flat false” when what Democrats actually want is “an extension of enhanced federal subsidies for insurance purchased through the ObamaCare exchanges that’s scheduled to expire at year’s end.” He went onto insist “[u]ndocumented people are banned from the ObamaCare exchanges entirely, so therefore they’re banned from the subsidies” as well as “federal Medicaid insurance plans, though some states do provide some state funded coverage”:   This led into a clip of Vance from Wednesday’s White House press briefing as a way of Dale to huff Vance lied about the Biden administration being the source of taxpayers picking up the tab for illegal immigrants when they flock to emergency rooms. After insisting Ronald Reagan made it law, Dale argued taxpayer dollars for illegal immigrants to receive free hospital care is a good thing because “the federal money...goes to hospitals to help them cover the cost of the E.R. visit” and thus not actually “comprehensive health care for undocumented people.”     He then insisted all Democrats want is to make sure hospitals are properly reimbursed...which would mean they incentivize illegal immigrants to become on a first-name basis with ER nurses. Tapper then cued up a Vance clip himself: “The Vice President also referred to some immigrants as illegal aliens, even though they’re not quite that. They have permission to be in this country.” Vance then explained what happened with the Biden administration granting millions of illegal immigrants parole and “asylum claims to people who weren’t really claiming asylum and when they waved the magic wand of amnesty, giving millions of people legal status even though they were in the country illegally, they also gave those people access to health care benefits.” Tapper muddied the waters: “So, amnesty often refers to giving people citizenship, and that’s not what the Biden administration did, but tell us more about what you found on this.” Pearl-clutching Dale declared it “is just not right” to refer to anyone who came across the border (illegally) as such, but rather “legal migrants.”     Check out how he wrapped up by deeming it “simply a fact” Republicans are lying when any layman’s understanding of those who came across as part of the Biden border crisis aren’t exactly on the pathway to citizenship: You can’t make up stuff like that, so it is true that this big Trump bill took away some combination of ObamaCare subsidies and medicare eligibility from various immigrant groups, including many people with TPS or with humanitarian parole. It is true Democrats are trying to reverse those cuts among the broader cuts for Americans and other immigrants. But again, in these in this case, I think it’s important to emphasize that these immigrants with parole, with TPS have permission to be in the U.S. The Vice President saying it’s his opinion that they shouldn’t have been given that permission, but they have been given it. That’s simply a fact. Earlier in the show, Tapper had let this slip in an interview with Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK):   “[I]n the one Big Beautiful Bill, it has a line saying cut and fraud, waste and abuse, specifically saying that Medicaid and Medicare and Medicare benefits cannot go to an illegal alien. Underneath this CR, that is going to cost the taxpayers $1.5 trillion to keep government open for four weeks, it’s specifically by line — exes that part out, so it’s more than just reimbursement. This is actually allows them to have Medicaid or Medicare inside if it’s a state funded or if it’s federal funded, so it goes much further than just reimbursement to hospitals,” Mullin added, referring to the Democrat counterproposal. To see the relevant CNN transcript from October 1, click here.

The fact-checking industry likes to view itself as the guardian of truth in an age of rampant misinformation, but what is one to do when they can’t all get on the same page? While PolitiFact, the Associated Press, and CNN’s Daniel Dale all rushed on Wednesday to call Republicans liars for saying Democrats want to give illegal immigrants access to federal benefits in exchange for ending the government shutdown, Factcheck.org was more nuanced, claiming that under GOP definitions of “illegal immigrant,” they could plausibly have a point. PolitiFact’s Maria Ramirez Uribe could have picked any Republican to give a “false” label, but she settled on Vice President JD Vance. According to Uribe, if Democrats are successful in removing parts of the One Big Beautiful Bill, illegal immigrants will still be ineligible for federal benefits, “The vast majority of federal health care dollars cannot be spent on health care for people in the U.S. illegally. They cannot enroll in Medicaid or Medicare, and they are ineligible to purchase health care coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. A small Medicaid program reimburses hospitals for uninsured emergency care, which can include immigrants in the country illegally but is not exclusive to them.” Vance and others would say Uribe’s point about hospital reimbursement actually proves their point, but over at the AP, Melissa Goldin also claimed: This is false. Democrats say they are pushing for the inclusion of key health care provisions in the next congressional spending package. In particular, they are seeking an extension of tax credits that millions of Americans use to buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act exchange and a reversal of Medicaid cuts made in the bill Trump signed into law in July. However, immigrants in the U.S. illegally are not eligible for any federal health care programs, including insurance provided through the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid. Hospitals do receive Medicaid reimbursements — which would be reduced under Trump’s bill — for emergency care that they are obligated to provide to people who meet other Medicaid eligibility requirements but do not have an eligible immigration status, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization. Goldin also got the founder and co-director of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms, Sabrina Corlette, to call the claims “a flat-out lie.” Goldin did not mention Corlette was a staffer for former Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin. Meanwhile, CNN’s resident fact-checker, Daniel Dale, echoed the sentiment, labeling it somewhere “from misleading to flat false.” Factcheck.org was more nuanced. In addition to the hospital reimbursement point, Alan Jaffe and Lori Robertson concede that immigration-related definitions are not as clear as they may seem: Julia Gelatt, associate director of U.S. immigration policy at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, told us the term ‘lawfully present’ is ‘not a category fully defined in immigration law.’ ‘Some people who are in the ‘lawfully present’ categories would be considered by most people as legal immigrants — such as refugees and asylees and victims of trafficking.’ But it is “a politically contested categorization,” Gelatt said. Towards the end, they also write, “So, Republicans are saying that parolees are in the country illegally, even though they were considered ‘lawfully present.’” To return to PolitiFact and Uribe, she tries to rebut this idea, “It’s important to note that many people granted lawful status through humanitarian parole or Temporary Protected Status programs don’t automatically qualify for Medicaid; TPS recipients aren’t eligible, and many people who entered the U.S. on humanitarian parole are required to wait five years before accessing it.” However, the link that Uribe herself provides has a table that says that TPS recipients are eligible for subsidies under the Obamacare exchanges and Medicare. It is bad enough that the fact-checking websites think they should have a say in what other people post online. The fact that Factcheck.org could not unequivocally affirm PolitiFact and AP’s confident anti-Republican claims is just another example why.

Pope Leo XIV’s recent comments, about how being pro-life should influence capital punishment and immigration policy, gave the cackling coven of ABC’s The View the perfect opportunity to thumb their nose and lecture conservatives about what it supposedly meant to be pro-life. Even calling them hypocrites for wanting to defend their lives with firearms. “I'm at least consistent as a lifelong Catholic,” shrieked self-proclaimed “devout Catholic” Sunny Hostin. “I am against abortion. I'm also against the death penalty. I'm also against guns. I'm also against the starvation of children. I'm a humanitarian above all, because I believe that all life is precious.” Flaunting how prideful she was about her position supposedly being beyond reproach, Hostin chastised gun owning Christians as hypocrites for wanting to defend their lives, even using air quotes to describe their brand of pro-life (pictured above): Yes, I'm against the death penalty in all cases. In all cases and that's why I find there is a hypocrisy with certain Christians who are 'pro-life' but they will pull that electric chair switch. They are 'pro-life' but they have their AR-15s in their cabinet. They are pro-life but they don't mind immigrant families being torn from each other. They are pro-life but they don't care about little children's subsidies being taken away from them. That is not pro-life!     Owning a firearm was very pro-life. It allowed the owner to defend their life as well as the lives of their loved ones and the innocent lives around them. A Georgetown University study from 2022 “estimates that guns are used defensively by firearms owners in approximately 1.67 million incidents per year.” Radio and TV host Jesse Kelly called out Hostin by equating her to the Devil in an X post. “Never let the communist use your values against you. It’s one of his favorite tactic [sic] because it has been so effective on America’s Right for so many years,” he wrote. “No more. Like the Devil himself quoting scripture to Jesus, this is what they do. Reject it.” Pretend independent co-host Sara Haines, who once proclaimed that it was “God’s Will” that pro-lifers die of cancers, falsely suggested that mothers were not a facture in the pro-life argument: Well, I was going to say I go from it less from politics, more from faith in the sense that people should check in with themselves. Because one of the things I think is always left behind in the conversation about choice is – are the mothers. The moms who are often battling the toughest decision they've ever had, struggling in their own lives, looking for help; which we don't offer a lot of those social services and I think that life is always kind of left out of the equation as a casualty.     While this conversation was spurred on by the leader of the Catholic Church, moderator Whoopi Goldberg (who played a Catholic nun in the Sister Act movie series) scoffed at the notion of parishioners going to a priest for confession: “Well, if you believe in the Bible, you believe in God, then you know that God says, ‘you don't have to go to anybody else to confess whatever you are going through. Come to me. No one can judge you but me.’” “No one has an abortion for fun. It's not something people go and, like, go party with,” Goldberg lied. In reality, the left had embraced the so-called “Shout Your Abortion movement,” alone with people literally throwing parties after they get abortions.     So far this year, The View applauded rising abortion rates while decrying the Trump administration’s plan increase America’s birthrate. In 2023, they hosted far-left extremist Jane Fonda who advocated for murdering pro-lifers. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: ABC’s The View October 2, 2025 11:19:04 a.m. Eastern (…) SUNNY HOSTIN: I'm at least consistent as a lifelong Catholic, I am against abortion. I'm also against the death penalty. I'm also against guns. I'm also against the starvation of children. I'm a humanitarian above all, because I believe that all life is precious. JOY BEHAR: You're against the death penalty in all cases? HOSTIN: Yes. BEHAR: Because some people really deserve to get it. [Laughter] HOSTIN: Yes, I'm against the death penalty in all cases. In all cases and that's why I find there is a hypocrisy with certain Christians who are 'pro-life' but they will pull that electric chair switch. They are 'pro-life' but they have their AR-15s in their cabinet. They are pro-life but they don't mind immigrant families being torn from each other. They are pro-life but they don't care about little children's subsidies being taken away from them. That is not pro-life! (…) 11:20:27 a.m. Eastern SARA HAINES: Well, I was going to say I go from it less from politics, more from faith in the sense that people should check in with themselves. Because one of the things I think is always left behind in the conversation about choice is – are the mothers. The moms who are often battling the toughest decision they've ever had, struggling in their own lives, looking for help; which we don't offer a lot of those social services and I think that life is always kind of left out of the equation as a casualty. WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Well, if you believe in the Bible, you believe in God, then you know that God says, ‘you don't have to go to anybody else to confess whatever you are going through. Come to me. No one can judge you but me.’ So, if you're going through -- if you're going through it and you are a person of faith, go to God. If it's not your thing, then figure out what is right for your life. Because, in this country, we still respect the mother. I do. And if the mother feels like she can't, I don't live her life. I don't know and I'm going to believe her when she says she can't because no one -- No one has an abortion for fun. It's not something people go and, like, go party with. So, you know, I believe we all have the things that we believe in and they're not black and white all the time. Sometimes they move. HOSTIN: And that's the great thing about this country. You can have your own beliefs and not put them on other people. GOLDBERG: Say that again. HOSTIN: You can have your own beliefs and not push them onto other people. [Applause] GOLDBERG: And that's why we're going to break right now. We'll be right back.

In late August, I had the pleasure of visiting El Salvador for the first time. I didn’t know what to expect. The bar had been set high by both conservative and liberal media, who either praised or decried President Nayib Bukele’s vigorous war on crime. Within a few hours of arrival, I saw the media reports were true. El Salvador, once a violent, gang-ridden nightmare, was now a place of peace.Much has been written about Bukele’s crackdown — understandably so, given the success of his efforts. El Salvador’s president deserves unending praise for transforming his country. Yet, this success has overshadowed his other policies. President Bukele’s Bitcoin adoption program, for instance, is of remarkable significance.In September 2021, El Salvador shocked the world by becoming the first country to accept Bitcoin as legal tender. Businesses were immediately required to accept the cryptocurrency. Western Bitcoin enthusiasts were overjoyed. Many Salvadorans, most of whom had previously existed in a cash economy, were skeptical.'Paying tax liabilities denominated in Bitcoin was just, I guess, a hard no.'After a few years, there were signs that the initiative had failed to meet expectations. In an August 2024 interview with Time, President Bukele conceded as much:Bitcoin hasn't had the widespread adoption we hoped for. Many Salvadorans use it; the majority of large businesses in the country have it. You can go to a McDonald's, a supermarket, or a hotel and pay with Bitcoin. It hasn’t had the adoption we expected. The positive aspect is that it is voluntary; we have never forced anyone to adopt it. We offered it as an option, and those who chose to use it have benefited from the rise in Bitcoin.But it wasn’t until the International Monetary Fund got involved that President Bukele made the difficult decision to scale back El Salvador’s Bitcoin program. As a condition for $1.4 billion in financial assistance, the IMF required El Salvador to revoke Bitcoin’s status as legal tender. Bukele accepted the IMF’s terms. In February 2025, the Salvadoran government passed an amendment to the Bitcoin law, which rendered use of the cryptocurrency voluntary and limited to the private sector.Just like that, El Salvador’s Bitcoin experiment was done. Or was it?Seeing for myselfWhen I traveled to El Salvador, I had bought into the media narrative regarding its Bitcoin adoption program — that, however interesting a program it might have been, it failed. But curiously enough, no one I spoke to down there shared that perspective.“I mean, it's, like, pretty f**king amazing,” Jake Hamilton, an American computer programmer who splits his time between Austin and San Salvador, told me. “I can pay with lightning for oysters at a beach shack in Surf City.”Jake’s enthusiasm for El Salvador is significant. He isn’t some casual Bitcoin fan who merely enjoys the novelty of paying for oysters in cryptocurrency. In many ways, Jake’s life — professionally, socially, and economically — revolves around Bitcoin. So when he praises El Salvador’s Bitcoin program, it means something.His Bitcoin journey began in 2015. After completing his undergraduate studies, Jake busied himself researching philosophy graduate programs. During that period, he took a seminar titled Bitcoin and Philosophy. The instructor: Nick Land, the arcane techno-philosopher known for his accelerationist theories.Jake didn’t know what to expect, but the seminar proved epiphanous. “He’s five minutes, 10 minutes of the first session, and I realize, like, holy s**t, the place to be doing philosophy — to be in actual philosophy of the world right now — is in Bitcoin: writing code and working in blockchain,” he explained to me.RELATED: Right-wing investor to challenge traditional banking with national crypto bank Photo by Bloomberg / Contributor via Getty ImagesAfter the seminar, Jake decided to move to New York, where he attended a coding bootcamp and dedicated his time to becoming a programmer. Around 2019, he discovered Urbit, Curtis Yarvin’s niche operating system, which connected him to numerous right-of-center programmers and crypto enthusiasts. Along with a few friends from that crowd, Jake ventured to Central America and eventually landed in El Salvador, arriving at the beginning of President Bukele’s special operation.It was a good time to be in El Salvador. Jake witnessed the restoration of order play out in real time. Yet, it was Bitcoin, not public safety, that drew him there. Jake knew a few Western lawyers in the country who practiced cryptocurrency law. They told him that something unique was taking shape in El Salvador — and that he wouldn’t want to miss it.Although President Bukele didn’t sign the Bitcoin law until June 8, 2021, El Salvador had already developed a nascent crypto scene. Jake told me that an anonymous donor contributed $100,000 (in Bitcoin, naturally) to the beach town of El Zonte in 2019 to establish a circular crypto economy. This began attracting Bitcoin-inclined expats and tourists. Bukele’s national transformation only amplified that appeal.Needless to say, Jake fell in love with El Salvador. When he isn’t in Austin, Texas, working on blockchain technology, he’s in El Salvador, working on blockchain technology — but also surfing, driving through the mountains, and brushing shoulders with El Salvador’s political elite. He’s become a central figure in the Salvadoran expat scene. He holds the lease on the Palestra mansion, a massive house overlooking the hills of San Salvador that often hosts parties and provides lodging for aligned travelers.The view from the topI visited the mansion a few times during my trip. The first time was at night following the Palestra Society’s annual conference. As I stood on the back patio, surrounded by a coterie of interesting people, I looked down at the lights of San Salvador and was struck by the peculiarity of it all. How did a small Latin American country with a GDP of $35 billion become a hub for heterodox right-wing Westerners? There are certainly several factors. But Bitcoin is a big one.Despite Jake’s appreciation for El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption program, he conceded that it faced challenges. “They did have to negotiate with the IMF, obviously, and the paying tax liabilities denominated in Bitcoin was just, I guess, a hard no,” he lamented. Moreover, given the low level of education and tech literacy in El Salvador — a country where the average monthly salary is roughly $400 — teaching people the finer points of self-custody proved difficult.While El Salvador reversed its decision to accept Bitcoin as legal tender, no other country boasts as much Bitcoin integration. Others have tried, but they don’t come close. “There’s a bit of Costa Rica that’s informally called Bitcoin Jungle, where there’s like a 20-mile radius where most of the businesses take Bitcoin,” Jake said. “But there’s nothing comparable to El Salvador in the world.”So was El Salvador’s Bitcoin adoption program a failure, as mainstream sources claim? Yes and no. On the one hand, its decision to no longer accept Bitcoin as legal tender is proof that the program didn’t entirely succeed. On the other, El Salvador is now the most Bitcoin-integrated country in the world — no small accomplishment.Furthermore, since agreeing to the IMF’s terms, El Salvador has continued to purchase Bitcoin; hosted PLANB 2025, the largest cryptocurrency conference in Central America; passed a law allowing investment banks to hold Bitcoin; and promoted Bitcoin mining using geothermal energy from volcanoes.It appears that Bitcoin is, in fact, alive and well in El Salvador. Abolishing its status as legal tender didn’t kill it — it merely altered the parameters. So while you cannot pay your Salvadoran taxes in Bitcoin, you can still do more with crypto there than anywhere else in the world.

The Trump administration said it plans to enforce federal immigration laws at Super Bowl LX after Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny was named as a performer for the halftime show.The NFL made an announcement on Sunday, naming Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, aka Bad Bunny, as the Super Bowl LX halftime performer. The news caused significant backlash due to the singer's recent comments about Immigration and Customs Enforcement.'We will find you. We will apprehend you.'In September, Ocasio was asked if one of the reasons he was not touring in the U.S. was because of "the [mass deportations of] Latinos."He replied, "Man, honestly, yes.""There were many reasons why I didn't show up in the U.S., and none of them were out of hate — I've performed there many times. All of [the shows] have been successful. All of them have been magnificent," he continued, according to the Guardian. "But there was the issue of — like, f**king ICE could be outside."On Wednesday's episode of "The Benny Show," Corey Lewandowski, an adviser to President Trump, was asked about Ocasio's concern for illegal immigrants and their deportation. He confirmed that there will be ICE agents at Super Bowl LX."There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people in this country illegally. Not the Super Bowl and nowhere else," Lewandowski explained.The 52-year-old, who works as a special government employee with the Department of Homeland Security, then issued a stern warning to illegal aliens."We will find you. We will apprehend you. We will put you in a detention facility, and we will deport you. So, know that that is a very real situation under this administration, which is completely contrary to how it used to be," he said.RELATED: Anti-Trump artist Bad Bunny named Super Bowl halftime performer — immediately makes it political Bad Bunny has not remained impartial regarding federal politics; he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election after he was offended by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe's joke about Puerto Rico. Hinchcliffe joked about Puerto Rico's garbage and landfill issues at a Trump rally and received criticism, despite this being a known problem on the island for years."I can understand that it's a joke, but there's people that doesn't [sic] understand that it's a joke. People who are going to agree with that joke," Ocasio said at the time, according to NBCUniversal.Bad Bunny also released a music video on July 4 that mocked President Trump and draped a Puerto Rico flag over the Statue of Liberty."It's so shameful that they've decided to pick somebody who just seems to hate America so much to represent them at the halftime," Lewandowski told host Benny Johnson. "We should be trying to be inclusive, not exclusive. There are plenty of great bands and entertainment people who could be playing at that show that would be bringing people together and not separating them."RELATED: Cross-dressing rapper Bad Bunny to headline Super Bowl — will it be DEMONIC? Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue The adviser concluded, "I don't care if it's a concert for Johnny Smith or Bad Bunny or anybody else. We're going to do enforcement everywhere because we are going to make Americans safe. That is a directive from the president. And if you're in this country legally, do yourself a favor. Go home." A DHS spokesperson also told Blaze News, "There is no safe haven for violent criminal illegal aliens in the United States."Super Bowl LX takes place at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, on Feb. 8, 2026.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

As more candidates announce their campaigns ahead of the 2026 midterms, the race for the coveted Florida congressional seat currently occupied by Byron Donalds just got more crowded. Madison Cawthorn, who represented North Carolina's 11th congressional district from 2021 to 2023, announced that he will be running for Donalds' congressional seat in a political comeback run in 2026. 'I'll fight to lower out-of-control insurance costs and stop crime in our streets and deport illegals.'Citing Charlie Kirk's death in a Wednesday Instagram post as an impetus for his decision to run, Cawthorn said, "I have been juggling this decision for some time now. Once Charlie was assassinated this became no decision at all. There is only one course of action for those of us who want to live in a free, prosperous, and safe land to do: Be extremely shrewd, fearless in the face of backlash and resistance, and to stand up and fight for our country.""I'm running for Congress to stand with President Trump, defend our conservative values, and fight to stop the radical left every single time," Cawthorn said in a YouTube video posted on Wednesday. "I'll fight to lower out-of-control insurance costs and stop crime in our streets and deport illegals."RELATED: Madison Cawthorn wins, becoming youngest member of Congress Photo by Alexander Tamargo/Getty Images for Latino Wall StreetIn an interview clip, Cawthorn expressed his intent to take up a bill championed by Donalds that would assist citizens impacted by flood insurance costs.Cawthorn is joining a crowded field of candidates vying for Donalds' congressional seat in Florida. Donalds has announced that he will not seek re-election to Congress and will be running for governor in 2026. According to News-Press, the Republican field of candidates includes Chris Collins, a former U.S. representative from New York; Illinois businessman Jim Oberweis; retired Marine Mike Pedersen; and president of Sun Broadcasting Jim Schwartzel. On the Democrat side, Howard Sapp is the lone candidate at this time. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

HA! Hook, Line, and SINKER! Jessica Tarlov's FREAK-OUT Over Trump's Project 2025 Goes HILARIOUSLY Wrong

GOP-Blaming Gov. Tim Walz REALLY Hopes Nobody Knows How the Senate Works (or Maybe HE Doesn't)

VA Dems Are NOT Sending Their Best: AG Candidate Jay Jones' Reckless Driving (116 MPH!) Charges Get WORSE